If you have enjoyed the work and blogs/tweets I’ve been putting out over the last few months would you be kind enough to follow the link below and vote for me as I’m up for a Shorty Award! Thank you

http://shortyawards.com/Bensouthall

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I’ve been in the USA for over a week now and ever since I arrived here the weather hasn’t exactly been what I’d expect from California at this time of year – in fact it’s not exactly what the locals would have expected either!

There’s been torrential rain, huge squally winds, the odd tornado and lightening strikes aplenty and that’s just here around Los Angeles. Up in the mountains, which surround this vast sprawling city, snow has fallen unabated with around 20 inches / 50 centimetres in some resorts. Winter has hit here with damaging results. It’s all been pretty easy for me to deal with though, coming from the UK you could say I’m used to a little rain and wind!

Just have a look at the way the pressure dropped on the graph below and the resulting rain that arrived:

So I’ve tried to deal with it as best I can. Not wanting to hide in my room and waste this opportunity to see a new location, and with a busy 2010 on the running calendar coming up (including the Comrades Ultra Marathon, South Africa in May) I grabbed my kit and headed out onto the sopping wet streets of the city. Normally I’d use the Runkeeper application on my iPhone to show me where I’m going, but being on international roaming it doesn’t make good financial sense to constantly download Google Map images.

I headed out with my GPS, a paper map, by backpack and camera and made for the coast – the mecca of Californian surfing….well on a good day anyway! It took me an hour to get there running into a strong headwind all the way and I didn’t see one other human being ‘outside’ of their car the entire time. I must be mad.

The beach was a mess; huge charging surf, flooded car parks, washed out beaches and the odd bird struggling to make headway in the gusting winds – it was a little different to the picture perfect Baywatch scene I’d imagined. Oh well it made a damn good run and witnessing the planes battling to land as they came into LAX airport was a sight to behold. It still amazes me that these huge lumps of metal actually stay in the air…

I’d spent the morning visiting another television station for an interview, this time KTLA in Los Angeles. There’s been so much interest in the ‘Best Job’ campaign right around the world since it started a year ago, that the story has been followed by media outlets far and wide all wanting to know about the experience and I’m only to happy to oblige. This one was pretty simple; a friendly trio of presenters, easy enough questions and just a hint of jealousy from the viewers…that’s what we’re trying to do after all!

Whilst over here I’ve also been giving some presentations to the travel industry about the job, Queensland and what happens next…that very obvious question. It’s a really new role I’ve taken on and hadn’t really done much before, bar at a wedding a few years ago, and one that becomes easier the more I do it.

G’Day USA is taking place at various locations with the next stop being Toronto, Canada for a couple of days before an overnight in New York and then back to L.A. for the flight home to Australia.

This part of California has impressed me you know; ok L.A. is a sprawling, vast mass of buildings and people bisected by roads, overpasses and freeways but it’s on these roads that there’s a noticeable difference. I’ve long been interested in looking after the environment and have considered owning a Toyota Pruis once I get back to Brisbane. They’re environmentally friendly and have a hybrid engine which significantly reduces the consumption of petrol. It switches between electric and engine driven power and as an Automotive Engineer fascinates me!

They are everywhere out here in California, there must be one every 10th car, and in a nation which loves the SUV and huge V8 engines it’s quite a statement. The ‘Arnie’ government have helped out the public as well by reducing taxes on owning one and have allowed them to travel in the ‘Car Pool’ lane – usually only for vehicles with more than one person. In my mind the USA wasn’t doing enough to reduce its carbon footprint but this goes a long way to at least making a visible start.